iPhone app buys: Games, yeah! News, not so much

Games rule. They represent 16 percent of the apps in the App Store, but 29 percent of the paid downloads. Entertainment also outperforms its presence in the store: 12 percent of available apps, but 22 percent of the paid downloads.

So those two pastime categories represent more than half the paid applications on the iPhone platform.

News applications — like the ones many of us rushed to build whereby we could scramble our venerable headlines and teasers into Yet Another Interface — represent 2 percent of the available apps but only 1 percent of the paid downloads. I suppose journalists can take some comfort, though, compared to other writers. Books make up 18 percent of available apps but only 3 percent of paid downloads.